Ibeyi's stellar self-titled debut album was a flashpoint that steeped itself in brittle electro-drenched R&B and roots Yoruban percussion and openly engaged the saints of Santeria: its introduction was an invocation to Elegua (the gatekeeper between worlds) and the goddess of wind and storms in "Oya." On the French/Cuban sibling duo's sophomore effort, Lisa-Kaindé and Naomi Diaz address matters more corporeal and rooted in lived experience. The spiritual here is an inspirational tool for understanding and confronting suffering and injustice. Ash is an album directly affected by the tension of the times. Its songs address female empowerment, racial injustice, loneliness, and love in a brittle yet warm mix less frenetic than its predecessor. Singing again in mixed French, English, and Yoruba, the set opens with "I Carried This for Years," with a sample from Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares and Naomi's bata and cajon entering amid loops and a synth bassline before the chant "Away Away." They are answered line by line by a wordless male chorus. The bata introduces the second single (and video), "Deathless." Its narrative relates an encounter between a then 16-year-old Lisa-Kaindé and a white French cop. It resonates with not only the immigrant experience in Europe but with recent events on the other side of the Atlantic: Charlottesville, Virginia; Ferguson, Missouri; Baltimore, Maryland; etc. The vocals are almost ethereal as they deliver the bewilderment, confusion, anger, and resolve anchored by those drums, a crunchy loop, and Kamasi Washington's tenor saxophone acting as a spirit guide, adding woven lines between and after the singing: "He said, he said/You're not clean/You might deal/All the same with that skin." Their response? Defiance: "Whatever happens/We are deathless...."

1		I Carried This for Years
2		Away Away
3		Deathless
4		I Wanna Be Like You
5		No Man Is Big Enough for My Arms
6		Valé
7		Waves
8		Transmission/Michaelion
9		Me Voy
10		When Will I Learn
11		Numb
12		Ash

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